Page 25 of Playoff
I called an Uber to get to the practice facility, and by the time I'd changed and made it to the bike room, JJ was already there and working up a sweat. I wasn't sure whether he was the kind of guy who was always early, if he was nervous about this, or just wanted to show me up, but suspected the first. Maybe all three.
"Hey." I up-nodded before getting on the bike beside him.
"Hey," was JJ's flat response.
It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how this model worked, but I soon had a warm-up routine going. I took a swig from my water bottle. "Cooper said you have a problem. We’re supposed to talk it out.” Not sure if JJ was on board with this, but I was doing my part. If the guy wanted to hold on to his grudge, I’d work around him.
We cycled in silence for long minutes. I’d done as much as I was willing, so the ball was in his court.
After a couple of miles, he broke the silence. “You have a lot of people pissed at you?”
“Yeah.”
“What for?”
“A lot of things.” I thought of Weasel, the people my parents embezzled from, players I’d made look stupid. Women who’d wanted more than I was willing to offer. Coaches. It was a long list. “But hell if I’m going to list them for you.”
“Your parents ripping people off one of those things?”
“Pretty well top of the list.”
He was quiet again for a moment. “My parents invested money with yours.”
Fuck. I’d guessed that was the problem. In the States, there were enough financial con artists that my parents didn’t attract a lot of attention. Here in Canada they were bigger news, and their victims popped up everywhere. It wasn’t just the climate I liked about California.
“Sorry to hear that.”
I didn’t say anything else. When the story had first blown up, I’d wanted to help the people who’d been scammed. Fortunately, before I could offer to do something stupid, a lawyer had approached me to help get through the interviews with the various law agencies that were involved. He’d given me good advice. Say as little as possible. I’d tried to help one family that reached out, and they’d hit me with a lawsuit so fast my head spun.
From the corner of my eye, I saw my teammate turn and stare at me. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
We were getting to it now. I paused the bike program and sat up, ready to pay full attention. “What do you want from me, JJ?”
He paused his bike as well. “I want you on another team. I don’t want to see the name Denbrowski every time I turn around.”
I crossed my arms. “I didn’t ask to come here.”
He looked past me. “I know. In my head, none of this is your fault. If you’d been part of the scam, you’d either be with them or in prison now.”
I kept from flinching with an effort. Everyone knew my parents had fled with my kid sister. They hadn’t taken me. Maybe people thought I’d refused to go with them, but I hadn’t been offered a choice. I liked to think I’d have been horrified by what they’d done and turned my back on them, but they were all the family I had. Who the hell knew what nineteen-year-old me would have done?
“You didn’t make my parents gamble on something too good to be true. You didn’t blow up our lives. But when I hear your name…”
“Even if I changed it, you’d still hear it every time they talked about me.”
“Not asking you to. And it’s not just what happened back then. My parents? Still dwell on it, and they’re hoping you being here gives us a chance to screw you over to benefit us.”
That hurt. It was hard to accept that people hated me for something I hadn’t done. I couldn’t reveal that though. Instead, I shrugged. “There’s a long line of people wanting that.”
He narrowed his gaze. “How the hell do you live with it?”
I tensed, my jaw clenching. I hadn’t done anything that was an issue to live with.
JJ read me better than I’d expected. “No, I don’t mean because you did it, but with people watching you, asking questions, trying to get their pound of flesh from you?”
“What choice have I got?”
My lawyer had suggested changing my name, moving away, but I couldn’t do that without giving up hockey. Hockey was all I had when this went down. I hadn’t gone the college route, but went straight to Florida’s farm team. Florida would have preferred me to leave, once my family name hit the headlines, but I was a damned good player and they settled for trading me.
